PUBLICATION INFORMATION
TITLE OF PUBLICATION
LA DEMARCHE SCIENTIFIQUE EXPéRIMENTALE EN FORMATION INITIALE D’ENSEIGNANTS DU FUNDAMENTAL (THE EXPERIMENTAL SCIENTIFIC APPROACH IN THE INITIAL TRAINING OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS)
NAME OF AUTHOR(S)
Marie-Noëlle Hindryckx
NAME OF PUBLISHER
Cahier des sciences de l’éducation (Université de Liège)
LANGUAGE OF PUBLICATION
French
PUBLICATION TYPOLOGY
Research
TARGET GROUP OF PUBLICATION
Teachers
SIZE OF THE PUBLICATION
Over 10 pages
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
Description of a training module for future primary school teachers carried out during professional training workshops (AFP in French) and aiming to train them to the experimental approach in science and therefore integrate It in primary schools.
Students experience experimental approaches to see the strong points and key elements of the targeted content.
The first step is to reveal students’ knowledge and preconceptions regarding the targeted approaches and contents.
There are three possibilities for this step:
• Using individual pre-test on approaches and contents.
• Building together a concept map, finding various ideas, and identifying among them those that relate more to the pupil or the teacher.
• Students’ preconceptions can also be identified all along the activity.
The second step is to put them in a situation.
Each student is given a scientific riddle and asked to write all his/her ideas, then to select the most relevant ones. Students are divided in groups of five or six with a same riddle and share their ideas. They select one or several of them they wish to test and are offered a box with material that might be useful. The supervisor is not supposed to intervene in the research. During the research, the students complete a laboratory log with their actions and choices. When it is over, the groups unite in pairs to communicate their results and share their experience. They can thus benefit from the experiences of the others, and go on if they were stuck in their research.
At the end of the – shorter – second part the two groups agree on the experimental device to find the solution and prepare to present it to the class, completing a form.
When presenting the riddle and solution to the class the teacher needs to manage the mistakes (in content or approach) during the presentation without denigrating the groups’ work, to understand the reason for the mistakes.
The students need to experience the first two steps as learners; the role of the future teacher comes during the first step (metacognition). The students analyse their experience regarding the contents and approach to see its key elements, its advantages and disadvantages and the conditions in which it can take place.
In the next step students build up discovery activities based on the experimental approach to be tested in a primary school class. Each group present a riddle or situation for children’s level, anticipate solutions that children could find, with precise timing, a content sheet and an idea of synthesis to make with children, with possible an evaluation. The students can have any media (science books, school books, internet…) at their disposal. The teacher helps building the activity. Students should not reproduce what they have experienced but be inspired by it and build something different for the children.
This step is difficult: the students know little about their target audience; mastering contents correctly takes time; managing a class of children is difficult for them. This is a whole new type of activity, and they tend to be inspired by their own experience in primary school.
The groups present their preparation to the class and teachers so that it can be commented by their peers and possibly used in internship by other students.
Students tend to neglect the concrete aspect of the lesson: they do not test the experiment, and material and they rarely anticipate children’s reactions.
On the last day of the AFP, the students are put in contact with a group of children for whom they organise workshops.
Assessing students’ complex performances:
A first part of the assessment can take place during the activities presentation, before carrying them out with the children. The groups must be able to explain and defend their choices. Written preparations are also assessed. The second part takes place on the day of the activity.
At the end of the activity the group of students give their impressions, what they (dis)liked, what disappointed them and why, the differences between their preparation and reality...
Assessing the training device:
At the end of the module, the whole process (riddle, preparation, real-life situation) is assessed with two types of questions: knowledge of the contents and on self-assessment.
Generally, students are satisfied with their experience; hesitations concern the knowledge of contents or unease to be responsible for their own training. Positive comments concern the novelty, the pleasure to search by oneself, to try and the realization through built sequences and meeting children (the spontaneous reactions and often under-estimated level of learning). They generally consider they have learnt something, mentioning content rather than approaches.
Difficulties also concern the subject although some admit they were disturbed by their freedom during the research. There are also some difficulties concerning the working of the groups.
CONCLUSION ET PROSPECTS
Using this type of module only once and in a few hours might be useless for the student, especially since first year students can have difficulties preparing and managing classes. More time to prepare activities with children is necessary. Decompartmentalizing lessons, with the subject teacher and educationalist could also work together on the various aspects of teaching. The module should be more integrated with other lessons in the first year. It would also be interesting to do it again in the second year to see how students would react when they are more prepared and when the thrill of novelty no longer applies, and to observe whether the students would use that experimental approach in their internship.
This training module is also an opportunity to work on students’ preconceptions regarding discovery activities regarding approaches and content, regarding science and research, regarding the roles of teachers and pupils during the activities.
Although there are flaws, the module convinced several students of the legitimacy of active approaches, particularly in science.
It is important that the experimental approach be integrate in the child’s learning sequence, from primary to secondary school.
The article concludes that experiments have their place at every level of compulsory teaching so that the pupil learns in a gradual and structured way.
REVIEWER’S COMMENTS ON THE PUBLICATION
The author teaches science didactics at the University of Liège. She describes here a training module for future primary school teachers aiming to train them to the experimental approach in science and therefore integrate It in primary schools.
Future normal school graduates are little enthusiast about teaching sciences. They consider themselves little acquainted with what they perceive as the basis of that teaching. For them science discovery in their professional training is mostly useful to “know things” (update on concepts) and to “be able to answer children’s questions” (the teacher as knowledge transmitter).
Science appears as complex. The teacher’s role is to lift the veil on “Science” for pupils, in the forms of stories, for instance (knowledge transmitter). The pupils’ role is mainly passive: to listen, understand and reproduce (knowledge receiver).
Aware of their lack of training in scientific fields, future teachers are often ill at ease with these, although they think they are better at biology because “it is the science of life, closer to people”.
To change those preconceptions, professional training workshops (A.F.P. in French) are used to make first year students discover a training module to the experimental scientific approach, with several aims:
• To experience an experimental scientific approach of their level,
• Have students make key elements of the experimental approach emerge (metacognition),
• Have students build and test activities in a real classroom context (using knowledge).
Another aim is to make students aware of the professional aspect of their training. Many first year students keep acting like secondary school pupils, do not link their studies to their future job. For instance, in mathematics or sciences, when they give the right answer to an equation, they do not understand why they receive a low mark if they fail to explain the process. Their behaviour is also inappropriate (late arrival, using the mobile phone…).
Many of them have not been in contact with school children for long. A one-week internship in the first year is therefore little satisfying. It is one reason to use the A.F.P. organised throughout the year to make students meet their future work context. The conditions are artificial (several students for a few children), but it makes it possible to observe some stereotypes or preconceptions of the interns in front of their target audience.
NAME OF THE REVIEWING ORGANISATION
Inforef
Comments about this Publication
Your comments are welcome
Date: 2013.07.02
Posted by Eva Smreková (Slovakia)
Message: This paper shows a training module for future primary school teachers in France carried out during professional training workshops . The aim was to train them in the experimental approach in science and therefore integrate it in primary schools. The paper shows how student primary level teachers participated in a module where they learned how to teach science using the experimental approach and gives a detailed view of the methods used to train the student teachers in this method. This approach could be useful for chemistry teachers to look at, and especially primary level teachers. For me this translation of the paper was very difficult to read and understand. This presented module convinced several students of the value of active approaches in science. Having this module in first year only had limitations as students did not have sufficient teaching experience and were much more concerned with preparing and managing larger classes. The limited research period did not provide any evidence that trainee teachers progressed to qualified teachers who were confident in using experimental approaches in their classrooms.It is very similar to Slovakia because many studebnts which are study tchemistry teachsr have not final exam from chemistry on your secondary school.
Date: 2013.05.03
Posted by Brian Dillon (Ireland)
Message: Trainee Student Teachers:
This paper identifies among trainee primary teachers, a lack of enthusiasm for science education, and physical sciences in particular. They say they are unfamiliar with scientific concepts and only see value from science training in increasing their knowledge and being able to answer children’s’ questions. When asked to cite good and bad memories from their training, they usually cite the biology approach as positive (experiments, observations, outputs) and the physics and chemistry as negative. (Too abstract, complicated, incomprehensible)
They feel their role is to lift the veil of ‘Science’ for students in the form of stories (providing knowledge) and that student’s role is essentially passive (receiving knowledge). They are well aware of their lack of training in science but feel they can perform better in biology because ‘it is the science of living and therefore closer to the experience of everyone.’
Research Project:
To address these issues the University of Liege designed a training module for first year students to be used during professional development workshop periods. (AFP) Its primary aim was to train them in the experimental approach in science and therefore integrate this in primary schools. The actions that take place are as follows:
Each student is presented with a scientific riddle.
They write down all ideas and select the most relevant ones.
In groups, students share ideas and select one or more to test.
Students complete a laboratory log of their actions and choices.
Groups present results and share experiences and are advised by teacher of reasons for any mistakes made.
Students compile with teachers help, experiment-based activities around a new riddle for testing in primary classes.
Their preparation is presented to teacher and class for comment.
Students are placed with group of pupils to give workshops.
On completion of the module the whole process (riddle, preparation and real-life situation) is assessed. Though satisfied with the experience and the novelty, the students found it hard to manage the freedom in the module.
Conclusions:
The module convinced several students of the value of active approaches in science. They feel they have learnt something but emphasized content over approach. Having this module in first year only had limitations as students did not have sufficient teaching experience and were much more concerned with preparing and managing larger classes. Furthermore, the limited research period did not provide any evidence that trainee teachers progressed to qualified teachers who were confident in using experimental approaches I their classrooms.
Is Research relevant?
The research, in my opinion, has parallels with the Irish situation. Trainee primary teachers in Ireland enter colleges of education without needing to have studied science to exam level at secondary school. Our school systems still place too much emphasis on learned knowledge than critical thinking which has implications for the development of real science skills. This makes it all the more essential that a similar type program be implemented across the four year degree programme for primary teachers.
Date: 2013.05.03
Posted by Grace Kenny (Ireland)
Message: This paper describes a training module for future primary school teachers in France carried out during professional training workshops (AFP in French). The aim was to train them in the experimental approach in science and therefore integrate it in primary schools.
It is relevant as it looks at how primary teachers are trained, and thus the approach they take to teaching science at primary level. It noted that many student primary level teachers said that they were unfamiliar with many scientific concepts and they felt they lacked the knowledge to answer many of the children’s questions. The paper did not address these issues (the teachers said lack of content knowledge), it simply dealt with training teachers to teach using an experimental approach.
The paper details how student primary level teachers participated in a module where they learned how to teach science using the experimental approach. The paper gives a detailed view of the methods used to train the student teachers in this method. This approach could be useful for chemistry teachers to look at, and especially primary level teachers. Unfortunately the translation of the paper was poor and difficult to read.
The paper suggests training primary level teachers in the experimental approach to science – so that primary teachers know how to lead experimental science research, rather than just teaching content. This is something that could be taken on board by Irish primary training colleges, as there is much more of a focus on teaching how to teach the content rather than developing an experimental approach to teaching within primary teachers.
Worthy of note was the that student teachers in the study found that using the experimental approach to teaching science lead to classroom management issues and took a significant amount of time. Thus teachers would need to develop their classroom management skills to deal with this approach to teaching science.
The student teachers also cited that lack of equipment hindered their ability to teach using this method.
Overall the approach to teacher training and the application of the approach by teachers who were confident in their abilities seemed to have a positive outcome in the classroom – though it was difficult to tell exactly due to the poor translation.
